The design of the future museum.

The construction of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews has been inaugurated in Warsaw today. The Museum is the largest new cultural investment in the Polish capital.

Joanna Najfeld reports

Poland is not just the territory of the German Nazi Holocaust of Jews, it is first of all a country of centuries long Polish-Jewish coexistence, which gave rise to specifically Polish Jewish culture and tradition. And this is what the new museum will be about. The idea of the project is not a reconstruction of some long lost world. It is about creating a center of modern education and culture, which involves the Jewish heritage, explains Jerzy Halberstadt, director of the musuem. And the modern building, designed by a Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaki, will take an estimated time of 33 months to complete.

A unique cultural event accompany the celebrations today - a concert of one hundred world famous Jewish kantors from around the globe. At the Polish National Opera House, accompanied by the local choir and orchestra, the kantors will perform a special composition by Charles Fox, entitled "Lament and Prayer", based on the words written by John Paul II at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

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